Tone
by GIRL IN STORY
Summary: Conversations with Special Agent Anthony Dinozzo. No pairing. Standard disclaimers apply.
1. Chapter 1

"I was buried alive once," Tony said, conversationally.

"That is not funny, Tony," Ziva admonished, leaning over the stainless steel table in Abby's lab to examine the casket recovered from the crime scene. There were two sets of five parallel lines gouged into the lid.

"You're right," Tony said. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize, Dinozzo," said Gibbs, walking into the lab, and handing Abby her customary caffeinated beverage.

"Right, Boss. Sign of weakness," Tony said, turning away from the casket. "We have an ID on the victim. Take it away, Abby."

Abby saluted. "According to Major Mass Spec, the corpse is Ensign Roger Horwich. His last assignment was on board the USS Enterprise. He was reported missing two months ago."

"He wasn't reported missing until his leave ended?" Gibbs asked.

"No family," Tony took over. "His father left when he was ten, and his mother died when he was nineteen. No siblings, aunts, uncles or cousins. He didn't have any friends, and his relationships never lasted for more than two weeks. According to his ex-girlfriend, he had commitment issues. I'll be able to tell you more after I have dinner with her on Friday night."

"He sounds like Tony," McGee said.

"That's funny," Tony said. "Probie."

"How did Ensign Horwich end up six feet under?" Gibbs asked.

"Working on it, Boss. Abby pulled a partial from the exterior of the casket."

"I'm running it through AFIS," Abby said.

"Good work, Abby," Gibbs turned to leave. "Dinozzo, you're with me. We're going to talk to Ensign Horwich's neighbors."

"On your six, Boss," Tony said.

Gibbs stopped, and turned around. "I can't remember, Dinozzo. When the parolee buried you alive, where you working at Philly, or Peoria?"

"Philly, Boss," Tony said.

McGee and Ziva looked at him.

"You were not pulling my arm?" Ziva asked.

"Leg," Tony corrected.

"That too."

"Of course not," Tony said, following Gibbs out of the laboratory. "You were right, Ziva. It isn't funny."


	2. Chapter 2

Gibbs pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and spoke into the plastic mouthpiece. "What?"

"Boss," Tony said. Gibbs turned to see his Senior Field Agent standing across the hallway from him. "Boss, if you pretend I'm a Metro cop, and I found a dead marine, we won't have to go to the conference."

Gibbs hung up, and said, "If you call me again, Dinozzo, I won't have to pretend. You will be a Metro cop."

Tony smiled and said, "Why do we have to go to a conference about office communication? Our communication skills are fine. You communicated that you're going to hit me if I don't shut up."

"But it isn't going to stop you."

"Probably not," Tony agreed.


	3. Chapter 3

"You've got my what?"

Gibbs sighed for the seventh time that day. Tony was trying not to count, but he couldn't help it. He decided, with detached interest, that it was similar to watching the primary red numbers of a bomb timer count down to detonation.

"Your six, Dinozzo," Gibbs said.

"My six what?"

"It's a military term. Six o'clock is the position directly behind an aircraft, so "I've got your six," means..."

"You've got my butt?" Tony asked, narrowing his eyes in confusion.

The timer counted down as Gibbs sighed for the eighth time. "Your back, Dinozzo. I've got your back."

"Oh," Tony said. He smiled. "Oh. Okay. I've got your six too, Boss."

Instead of sighing, Gibbs suppressed a smile, and the bomb was diffused.


	4. Chapter 4

Tony struggled against the swelling to open his eyes.

"Not again," he groaned, sitting up. He watched Ziva handcuff Hugh Kafka, while Gibbs ran calloused fingers over his scalp. He winced.

"What was I knocked out with this time?"

"The butt of a Glock," said McGee.

"That isn't very original," said Tony, loud enough for Kafka to hear.

"Do you have a headache, nausea or double vision?" Gibbs asked.

"I'm fine," said Tony, closing his eyes.

"Don't go to sleep, or you'll end up in a coma," McGee warned.

Tony didn't open his eyes. "No I won't, Probie. That's Gibbs' thing."

"Don't push you luck, Dinozzo. You've had enough head trauma for one day," said Gibbs.

He grasped Tony's hand and pulled him to his feet. When Tony staggered, he said, "You'd better not pass out on me, Dinozzo. I don't want to carry you back to the car."

"Dinozzos do not pass out," Tony mumbled.

"You pass out all the time," Ziva said.

"You passed out a couple of minutes ago," said Kafka. He, Ziva and McGee fell into step behind them as they walked towards the car.

Tony glared at him. "You stay out of this."

Kafka shrugged.

"Increased irritation is a symptom of a concussion," said McGee.

"It's also a symptom of spending time with you, Probie. You sound like a medical textbook."

McGee shrugged. "Ziva and I researched traumatic brain injury the last time you got knocked out."

Tony turned his head to look at his two teammates out of the corner of his eye. He regretted the movement when he saw four of them.

"You get hit in the head a lot," Ziva explained.


	5. Chapter 5

Tony tried not to think about the pile of paperwork that he had to complete before he could go home. He tried not to think about how late it was. He tried not to think about the irritation at the back of his throat.

"Are you on drugs, Tony?"

Tony looked up from his paperwork to see Abby in front of him. "What? No. What?"

"Then how did you do it?" Abby asked.

"Do what?"

"How did you rip out the windshield? And the steering wheel?"

Tony shrugged. "Adrenaline?"

"I guess," said Abby.

"You thought I was on drugs?"

"Actually, that would explain a lot," said Ziva.

McGee grinned, and Tony saw Gibbs smile into his coffee, but they stopped when Tony's laugh turned into a cough. He gripped his desk until his fingers turned white, and he could breathe again. When he looked up, Gibbs was standing next to his chair. He pressed the back of his hand to Tony's forehead.

"It's just a cough," said Tony.

"You haven't coughed that hard since you had the plague," said McGee.

"Thanks for the reminder, Probie."

"You should go to Bethesda," said Abby.

"I hate hospitals."

"Tony is going to the hospital for a cough?" Ziva asked.

"No, he's not," said Gibbs, returning to his desk and sitting down.

"Thank you, Boss." Tony tried not to think about the inexplicable disappointment he felt at the back of his throat.

"He going to autopsy," said Gibbs.

"It sounds a little disturbing when you say it like that, Boss."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"I'm going to autopsy," Tony said.

"You think, Dinozzo?"

"I try not to."


	6. Chapter 6

"Abby, Gibbs asked me to..." Tony trailed off as the sliding glass doors to Abby's lab slid open, and he stepped inside. Abby was wearing a skirt suit, with sensible pumps on her feet, and a silk scarf wrapped around her tattooed neck. She was glaring at her reflection in a blank computer screen.

"Don't start with me, Anthony Dinozzo. I'm having a bad day, and I haven't decided whether or not I like you yet."

"You aren't the only one," Tony said, rubbing the back of his head.

Abby's tone turned penitent as she faced him. "Ducky likes you. You're the only NCIS agent who listens to his stories."

"I'm the only NCIS agent who hasn't heard them before."

"That's true," Abby admitted, "but Gibbs was likes you too, and he doesn't tell stories."

"If Gibbs liked me, he wouldn't hit me," Tony said, smiling. He cleared his throat and asked. "Why are you having a bad day?"

"I have to give a deposition on the Lamar case this afternoon."

"That explains the suit," said Tony.

"I hate court," said Abby. "I feel like everyone is judging me."

"That's stupid."

"Excuse me?"

"No one is judging you," said Tony.

"I know, they're judging the defendant, but..."

"That's not what I mean," said Tony. "You're Abby. Abby has a spider tattoo on her neck, not a silk scarf. They're judging Miss Abigail Scuito. You're like an undercover agent."

"An undercover agent," Abby repeated.

"People don't see you. They see your cover. When I'm undercover, I don't worry about what people think of me. That's what Tony Dinozzo would do, not what my cover would do. Do your job, and don't worry about anyone else. "

"What Tony Dinozzo would do," she repeated.

"Right."

"I've decided," Abby said. She snaked her arms around his neck, and pulled him into a hug. Her cheek was pressed against the lapels of his suit. After a moment, Tony wrapped his arms around her waist.

"What?" he asked

"I've decided I like you."


	7. Chapter 7

"This one doesn't have a name," said Tony, running his palm over the rough wood of Gibbs' purgative project. He pressed a sheet of garnet sandpaper against an exposed rib and dragged it along the grain.

"I ran out of ex-wives."

Tony laughed, softly in the silence of the basement. "You could name them after ex-arrests. They'd be cathartic to burn. "

"I'd have to build them first," said Gibbs.

"What about agents? You've gone through almost as many agents as arrests. The Blackadder, The Langer, The Burley," he paused to take a drag of beer from the amber bottle in his left hand. "Would you burn The Dinozzo?"

Gibbs bowed his head as a rueful smile crossed his face. "I get the feeling I would never finish working on The Dinozzo."


	8. Chapter 8

Tony woke up when Gibbs hit him on the back of the head. It took him a minute to catalogue his surroundings. He realized that he was in a hospital room, but he wasn't in bed, and he wasn't in pain.

"That's a first," he said to himself. He arched his back against the chair he had fallen asleep in.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Gibbs asked.

"Pedinotti shot you."

"I know that, Dinozzo. Why aren't you interrogating him?"

"I..." Tony faltered.

"We don't have enough evidence to convict him for the murders," Gibbs said. "I don't want him to walk. I want the son of a bitch locked up for life."

"Boss..." Tony tried again.

"What, Dinozzo?"

"I shot him."

"Oh," said Gibbs, sitting back against his pillows. "Good job, Tony."

"Good job? You hate it when I kill people. We have to do all that extra paperwork."

"Not my problem, Dinozzo," said Gibbs. He tapped his fingertip against the starched blanket draped across his legs to indicate his medical internment. Tony grinned in a moment of tacit capitulation. The extra paperwork was worth it.

"What are you doing here?" Gibbs asked again.

"I love hospitals?" Tony tried.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"It was worth a shot."

"Go back to sleep, Dinozzo."

"On it, Boss," said Tony, closing his eyes, "But if you hit me to wake me up in the morning, I'm asking the nurse to sedate you."


	9. Chapter 9

"My apartment," said Tony. "My car. NCIS. The drugstore. My car again."

"How did he get his hands on footage from NCIS security cameras?" Ziva asked, as she watched Tony stretch his mouth into a pixilated grin on the plasma screen. The recorded light of the flickering images highlighted her pupils. No one answered her.

"The laundromat," said Tony.

The phone on Tony's desk rang, and he hesitated before switching it to speakerphone and answering.

"Special Agent Dinozzo," he said.

"Did you watch my movie?"

No one needed to tell McGee to start tracing the call.

"Mr. Tarentino? You finally got my letter," said Tony. "I loved the biblical theme in _Pulp Fiction_. It's a classic. _And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee._"

"That's funny, Special Agent Dinozzo, but I know you're stalling so that Special Agent McGee can triangulate my location." The voice was neutral. It didn't betray gender, age, or emotion.

"What do you have against me?" asked Tony. "Did I send you to prison? Sleep with your girlfriend? Look at you the wrong way?"

"You didn't do anything. Special Agent Gibbs killed my son."

Tony glanced at Gibbs, but when he spoke, there was faith in his voice. "Gibbs doesn't kill anyone who doesn't deserve it."

"My son didn't deserve it. Your agent hasn't traced my call yet, has he?"

"No, he hasn't. Let me get this straight. You're stalking me because Gibbs pissed you off?"

"Didn't you hear me?" The voice asked. "I said he killed my son."


	10. Chapter 10

The brushed metal doors of the elevator closed, hiding Vivian Blackadder from view. A lock of red hair had fallen free from the confines of her hair clip, and as it stuck to the tear track on her cheek, Tony almost felt sorry for her.

"What do you think, Dinozzo?"

Tony looked up at his boss. Gibbs was bent over a report on Amad Bin Atwa.

"She's not bad," said Tony, "For a suit. But I don't think you can trust her to watch your six. She almost got you killed."

Gibbs narrowed his eyes. "What are you talking about, Dinozzo? She almost got you killed."

"How hard did you hit your head, Boss? Mohammad threw a grenade at you. Remember?"

"It didn't even touch me," Gibbs shrugged it off, "But Blackadder blew your cover when you were surrounded by armed Spanish terrorists."

Tony laughed. "It was worse than that, Boss. They were armed Spanish fishermen."

Gibbs smiled and threw back a mouthful of stale coffee from the paper cup on his desk. The agents were silent for a minute, as they filed their reports in the darkness of the empty office. They were still wearing the clothes from their undercover operation, and every few seconds Tony would brush a lock of hair out his eyes. Gibbs had made him wash out the styling products for the operation, and Tony knew that he looked younger than usual.

"We'll be shorthanded again," said Gibbs. "The extra work will fall on your shoulders."

"My shoulders are young. They can handle it." Tony felt Gibbs' hand connect with the back of his head. "Not that your shoulders aren't young, Boss."

Tony shrugged off his vest, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to type his report. Gibbs looked comfortable in his overcoat, but Tony missed his Ermenegildo Zegna suit.

"I'll talk to Morrow in the morning," said Gibbs. "Finish your report."

"On it, El Capitan."


	11. Chapter 11

"Why the hell didn't you tell me about La Grenouille?"

Tony laughed. "You weren't here. You were drinking Tequila on the white beaches of the Caribbean Sea with Mike Franks and the local senoritas. In Spanish, it's La Rana, not La Grenouille."

Gibbs was uncompromising. "Why didn't you tell me after I came back?"

"I didn't want to get used to it." Tony bit his tongue, and tasted blood, but it was too late to take back his words. He took a breath. "I didn't want to get used to having you watch my six again. I'm a federal agent." He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "I can handle it. But it would make everything harder when you left again."

For a long minute, Gibbs was quiet. Then, "You think I'm going to leave again?"

"I'm not... I don't know," Tony said.

"God damn it, Dinozzo," said Gibbs. "Stop acting like you don't know what to say to me."

"I don't. I've never had to do this before. Not at Baltimore, or Philadelphia, or Peoria."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I always left first."


	12. Chapter 12

"Shoot me," said Tony.

"Shut the hell up, Dinozzo," Gibbs warned.

Tony's eyes were blank, but when he smiled, his teeth shone in the light from the nearest neon sign. It hung in the window of a bar, advertising a beer that he had never heard of. Tony's back was pressed against the wall of the bar. One of Philip Magder's fists tightened around his wrinkled collar, and the other one leveled a Kel-Tec P-11 semi-automatic, short-recoil operated pistol at his head.

"I dare you."

"Tony," said Gibbs. He and Vivian stood to the side, SIG Sauers drawn and useless. The inevitable crowd of civilians stood behind them. A woman with a baby was next to a man with his father, but all Tony saw were potential hostages. He swallowed bile when he realized Magder saw the same thing.

"I will," Magder said. "I'll kill you."

His forehead was slick with sweat, and his hand shook around the gun. When Tony saw the barrel fall, he moved. He brought his hand down on Magder's elbow, unlocking the joint and forcing him to drop the P-11. By the time he'd picked it up, Vivian was cuffing Magder and Gibbs was marching towards Tony. He backed up instinctively at the look on Gibbs' face, and winced when his bruised head hit bricks again. Gibbs' palms rested on either side of Tony's shoulders. When he spoke, his voice was laced with anger.

"If you ever dare someone to shoot you again," he said. "I'll kill you myself."

He turned, and walked towards the NCIS van. Vivian hesitated before following with Magder. "He was worried about you," she said.

Tony smiled, and exhaled unsteadily. "Yeah, the threat against my life was a dead giveaway."

Tony pressed a hand to the back of his head, and checked his fingertips for blood. His head hurt, and he was not looking forward to the trip back to NCIS. Gibbs' driving made him nauseous even when he wasn't concussed.

Tony followed his team to the van, glancing at Gibbs when he slid into the passenger seat. He was tired, bruised, and worried, but he smiled when Gibbs pulled into traffic. For the first time since Tony had met him, Gibbs was driving below the speed limit.


	13. Chapter 13

"Don't worry, Dinozzo. I've got your six."

"My six what?"

There were hands, pressed against Tony's abdomen, a tense jaw above him. His right shoe felt too loose, and he tried to sit up so that he could tighten the laces, but a hand moved from his stomach, and held him down.

"The ambulance is on its way. Don't move," said Gibbs. Tony wanted to tie his shoe, but Gibbs sounded angry, so he held still.

"What happened?"

"You got shot."

"Oh," said Tony. "Cool. It sounds like something that would happen in a movie." Gibbs didn't answer. "This isn't a movie, is it?"

"No, it isn't."

"I didn't think so. There's usually less blood. Unless it's by Tarentino."

Tony loved Tarentino. Pulp Fiction. Inglorious Basterds. _Quite frankly, watching Donny beat Nazis to death is the closest we ever get to going to the movies._

"Where's Vivian?" Tony asked.

Gibbs was staring at the horizon, like he was watching a movie. "She doesn't work here anymore."

"Did she die?"

"No."

"Good. She wasn't bad. For a suit."

Again, Gibbs didn't answer. Tony wondered how angry he was. He hated making people angry. He should be used to it by now.

"Where's my father?" Tony asked.

Gibbs looked at him. He said, quietly, "Your father isn't here, Tony."

"But I'm bleeding." Inglorious Bastersds. _The closest we ever get to going to the movies. _

There was a wail in the distance. In the horizon Gibbs had stared at, like he was watching a movie.

Again, quietly, "Don't worry, Tony. I've got your six."

Tony nodded. He wanted to tie his shoe, but people were strapping him onto a stretcher. He wasn't worried, though. Gibbs had his six. He would take care of the shoe issue.


	14. Chapter 14

Tony asked, "Abby, there was no mummy ten years ago, so how could there be a curse?"

"It's kind of a chicken and egg thing, Tony."

Chicken and egg thing, and now Tony's expiration date had hit and he had gone bad, like milk, or a bad egg, or the rancid cheese on the day old pizza he was eating in the office, in the dark, because he was too tired to care.

That's what his old boss had said, in Baltimore. When two years were up and Tony started staring out windows, the Chief had said, "Your expiration date is coming up, Dinozzo. You're only good for two years, right?"

Tony wasn't even good for that long.

At NCIS, no one said anything about expiration, unless it had to do with a stiff on Ducky's tables.

Then the stiff was mummified Mark Schilz, and Abby thought he was cursed, but maybe Tony was overanalyzing the analogy.

Then there was Richard Owens, fresh from Pearl Harbor.

"You got computers at Pearl?" Tony asked.

"Ours are on the beach so we can surf on breaks."

Tony laughed. Surfing sounded good. Hell, breaks sounded good. Philadelphia, Peoria, Pearl Harbor. He could just forgot Baltimore, where he met Gibbs, and Washington, where he followed him.

He couldn't forget that comment, at the crime scene.

"I didn't become an NCIS agent yesterday, Kate. As a matter of fact, tomorrow…"

"It will have been two years."

And Tony was suspicious, looking at Gibbs out of the corner of his eyes. Gibbs didn't miss a anything, and he hadn't missed Tony starting to stare out windows. Without looking up from King Schilz and his curse, he had made it obvious that he was still watching Tony.

"That's kind of touching, Gibbs. Remembering the day you hired me."

"Yeah, well, it seemed like a good idea at the time."

And Tony tested him anyway. All those jokes about his eyesight. He enjoyed the irony, the analogy, because really, he wanted to know how much Gibbs had seen. Gibbs was watching him, but had he seen Tony change? It seemed like a good idea at the time. Tony was only good for two years.

"I didn't realize, Boss. How old are you?" But he did realize. He realized he was being a bastard, a bad egg. Chicken. So sure, maybe Tony was scared.

Tony threw the slice of day old pizza back into the day old cardboard box, because he cared a little. A glance at the clock told him it was after midnight, which meant it was morning, which meant it was official. He was thinking about throwing away the health hazard, and going home for the night, when the elevator doors slid open.

Without saying anything, no jokes about expiration dates, no touching nostalgia, Gibbs slapped a hot box of pizza on top of Tony's old one, and opened the lid.

Tony picked up a slice. He took a bite.

Sausage, pepperoni, extra cheese.


	15. Chapter 15

Tony didn't open his eyes when Gibbs stepped off the elevator and came to stand in front of his desk.

"You seen Kate and McGee?" Gibbs asked.

"I told them to go home," Tony said. "Their reports are on your desk. Kate was looking pretty jet lagged. Ciudad del Este was a wake-up call. She still isn't used to prostitution rings, or disembodied eyeballs, or fucked up politics." Tony opened his eyes, but he tried to keep his body language to a minimum. He knew that Gibbs knew that he was talking to avoid communication. "That last one is kind of a surprise. I mean, she used to work for the Secret Service." He smiled.

"Tony."

The first name was a reprimand and a question. Gibbs had trusted him enough to send him to Paraguay. He deserved an honest answer. An eye for an eye.

"McGee told me what the Colonel did. He quit. He was ordered to protect Purcell, so he quit." Gibbs watched Tony with an unreadable expression. Tony took a breath. "He wasn't the only one who got that order."

"I know," Gibbs said. "I read your report."

"When Tabarez unlocked Purcell's handcuffs, he said that he was doing the same thing we were. He was following orders."

"Jesus, Dinozzo," Gibbs said. "Is that what this is about?"

Tony shrugged.

"You remember the Lamar case?" Gibbs asked. Tony looked up and saw that he was trying not to smile.

"Boss?"

"The Pedinotti case? The Magder case? Damn it, Dinozzo, I had a hard enough time getting you to follow orders during training."

"But that was years ago," Tony said, crossing his arms. "Today you told me to watch Purcell and I didn't even question you. I follow your orders blindly."

"I ever given you a reason not to trust me?"

Tony blinked at the casual question. He didn't see what that had to do with anything, but the answer was obvious.

"No," he said.

"Do you?"

"What?"

"Do you trust me?" Gibbs repeated.

"Yeah, Boss," Tony's voice was rough. "I trust you."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

Tony frowned. "It's that simple?"

Gibbs laughed, and the sound carried across the empty office. "You think it was simple, Dinozzo?"


	16. Chapter 16

Tony heard an ambulance in the distance, and he almost smiled until he remembered that no one knew where he was.

He had finally found his phone, after crawling around in the dark for a solid quarter hour. His hands were scraped up from the wet asphalt, but they were a pleasant distraction from his shoulder. He was pretty sure there was no exit wound.

He sat on the ground, leaning against a metal dumpster. He held down the button on his phone that was blank, because the painted number one had worn off sometime last year. When he requisitioned the cell phone, he hadn't realized that the screen lit up as blue as Bethesda's isolation ward. He tried to ignore it as he held the phone up to his face.

"Gibbs."

"Hey, Boss," Tony said, through the plastic mouthpiece, up to a satellite and back down to Gibbs' cell phone. The third one this month. Some things never change.

"Dinozzo!" Gibbs shouted. Tony would have flinched, but he just didn't have the energy. "Where the hell have you been?"

"I got in a little trouble."

"Not as much trouble as you're going to be in," he said, and his voice was Marine loud.

"You sound mad, Boss." Tony tried for innocently surprised, but again, energy. He just didn't have it.

"Of course I'm mad, Dinozzo! I'm at the god damn morgue looking at John Does!" and this time, Tony did flinch. He tried to imagine Gibbs at the morgue. He tried to imagine Gibbs looking at strangers in their thirties, with brown hair and closed eyes, but he couldn't finalize the expression on Gibbs' face, so it stayed blurred to match Tony's vision.

Gibbs sighed, and Tony could hear it through, you know, the satellite. "Where are you, Tony?"

"I'm not sure, Boss. An alley."

"I'll get Abby to trace your cell. You need an ambulance?"

"I wouldn't go so far as to say, "need," but..."

"I'll call for an ambulance."

"Thanks, Boss," Tony murmured, and the next time he heard sirens, he smiled.


	17. Chapter 17

"You wanted to see me, Director?" Tony asked, standing in the doorway.

Director Sheppard stood up, and pushed her chair out of the way.

"Come in," she said. "How's your arm?"

Tony deliberately avoided glancing at the sling that immobilized his left arm. "I'm fine, Director."

"Tell me, Tony; Do you see anything missing?"

Tony frowned in confusion and glanced around the office. He knew she was testing him, but he didn't know why. It wasn't as if there was anyone else to take over the team in Gibbs' absence. Tim and Ziva were still too unfamiliar with investigative work. Tony was the last man standing.

"The black and white photograph of a biplane that used to be on your bookshelf?" Tony asked. "It had a silver frame," he added helpfully.

The Director laughed. "You're right, Tony. That is missing, but it isn't what I was talking about."

Tony shrugged, and then winced when his arm protested.

"I'm talking about the sick leave request that isn't on my desk."

"Oh," Tony said. "I'm fine, Director. Why did you get rid of the picture?"

"It was an antique. I sold it at auction last weekend."

"Sold it? You're the head of federal agency, and you're auctioning off your antiques? What have you been blowing all your money on, Director? Cars? Clothes? Those pretty new earrings you're wearing?"

"Tony," she laughed again.

"No, I know you aren't spending the money on me," Tony said. "My raise wasn't that good."

"Tony, I'm serious," she said. "You were badly injured yesterday. You need to take care of yourself."

"I'm fine," Tony said again, with a smile that showed off all his teeth. "I swear on my mother's life. Don't I look fine to you?"

"You're a good liar. If you insist on working, I have a favor to ask."

"What is it?"

"I need someone for an undercover operation. It's a long shot, but we might be able to take down an international arms dealer. What do you say?"

Tony hesitated.

"I really need your help," she added.

"I say," Tony ignored the pain in his arm. "Read me in."


	18. Chapter 18

It was 0400 when Tony's phone rang. He groped for it in the dark.

"Boss?" he said. He didn't know anyone else who would call him at such an ungodly hour.

"Dinozzo. Where were you last night?"

"What?" Tony asked.

"Were you alone?"

Tony frowned in confusion. Realization struck and he closed his eyes. "Not again, Boss."

"Feel sorry for yourself later, Tony. I need to know your alibi."

"I was at home."

"Were you alone?"

"Not if you count Bogey and Bacall."

"I don't, Dinozzo. And neither will the jury."

Gibbs sounded furious. Tony started laughing, but then he stopped suddenly, because he was afraid that over the phone, it would like he was crying.

"I'm starting to think the universe is trying to tell me something, Boss," he said quietly.

How many times had he been accused of murder? It wasn't just those severed legs, or La Grenouille's water bloated body.

It was the chaplain that kidnapped women and dressed them up in wedding gowns. McGee had said, "You seem to have an awful lot in common with this..." Tony hadn't let him finish the sentence. Tony had almost finished his sentence in prison when he was framed for murder. "I'm immature, and I'm angry, and I like control!" It was Jeffrey White with his fake innocence, sitting behind Tony with his real ignorance.

It was an overheard joke about narcissism, a record player with a secret in its stomach, a serial killer he could relate to. There but for the grace of God go I.

"Dinozzo!" Tony had thought that Gibbs was angry before, but he wasn't prepared for the ferocity in his boss' voice. "You going to listen to the universe? Or are you going to listen to me?"

This time, Tony did laugh, and he didn't care what it sounded like.

"You, Boss," Tony said. "I'm going to listen to you."


	19. Chapter 19

Tony woke up to the smell of gunpowder. He was about to start cursing, until he realized that he was behind his desk, and the scent was coming from the body slumped against his chest. Abby's arms were wrapped around Tony's neck, and her face was pressed against his shirt collar. He wondered if the buttonhole would leave an imprint on her cheek when she woke up.

The only lights in the office were Tony's computer, the weak moonlight, and the glare from Gibbs' desk lamp. Gibbs was working on paperwork, but he looked up when Tony asked, "What time is it Boss?"

"About 2300."

"Why is Abby still here?" he whispered.

"Why do you think, Dinozzo? She was worried about you."

Tony smiled. "And why are you still here, Boss?"

"Shut the hell up, and eat your pizza," Gibbs was glaring at him, but Tony laughed quietly, and disentangled an arm from Abby's waist to open the cardboard box on his desk. The smell of melted cheese mixed with the gunpowder perfume, and the persistent scent of coffee from the cups in Gibbs' trashcan.

"You bought pizza?" Tony asked. "You sure I didn't die today?"

"There's still time."

"Shutting up, Boss."

Tony felt Abby's eyelashes against his neck when she opened her eyes.

"Tony?" she said, into his collarbone. "You're wearing clothes."

Tony and Gibbs exchanged a vaguely incredulous look.

"That isn't unusual for me," Tony said slowly. "What on earth were you dreaming about, Abby?"

He wasn't surprised when she didn't blush. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"I wouldn't," said Gibbs, walking over to steal a slice of pizza.

He sat down on the edge of Tony's desk. Abby smiled at Tony. The buttonhole from his collar had left an imprint on her cheek.

Tony had been at work since 0700, except for the time he'd spent in locked in an ensign's basement. His clothes were stiff with dirt, sweat and blood. He desperately needed a shower, but for the moment, the smell of grime was overpowered by the evanescent scents of gunpowder, coffee, and pizza.


	20. Chapter 20

When Tony walked into Autopsy, Ducky was up to his elbows in a Petty Officer, and halfway through a story about a woman he had met in Japan.

"You see, she wasn't really a geisha at all. Her obi was tied in the front. I should have known better."

"Ducky?" Tony interrupted. Ducky was used to it, and he doubted the Petty Officer would mind. "You wanted to talk to me before I left?"

"Good timing, Tony. I was just finishing up with Petty Officer Baker." He stripped off his latex gloves. "I happen to be going your way today, because I need to pick up my mother's medication from the pharmacy. I was wondering if you would like a lift home?"

Tony's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"No reason. I thought you might appreciate a ride."

"Come on, Ducky. This is the third time this week that someone has offered to drive me home. What's the deal?"

Ducky looked uncomfortable. "We just don't like to see you behind the wheel of car."

"What?" Tony frowned. "You've known Gibbs for years, and you're worried about my driving?"

Sometimes, Tony wondered why he liked cars.

There were obvious, Freudian explanations that he wished he didn't know. Thank you, Kate.

Between gas prices, and his coworkers' driving abilities, Tony was amazed that he hadn't developed some sort of phobia. He had to psych himself up before he got into a car with Gibbs, and he actually made his peace with God when he drove with Ziva.

"No, no, you've got it all wrong. You're driving is first rate. It's your luck that worries us. It seems like every time you get near a car, it explodes. If you have some company, at least we'll know whether or not you survived."

Tony blinked. He opened his mouth, but then closed it again without saying anything.

He remembered the time everyone at the office thought he'd died in a car crash, and he had to take a physical to prove he was still alive. The time his car was stolen and totaled live, on the six o'clock news. The car bomb that everyone thought had killed him, and the car bomb that almost did.

"I didn't enjoy performing your autopsy, Anthony. And I'm not looking forward to doing it again," Ducky said, quietly.

Tony ignored the implied inevitability, because it wasn't the first time Ducky had said he was too reckless. How did he put it? Unaware of his own limitations.

He remembered their faces when he'd stepped off the elevator. Their guns aimed at Trent Kort. One car bomb after another.

If he let Ducky drive him home, he'd have to catch a cab to work in the morning.

Gibbs, and Abby. Even Ziva had offered him a ride. Tony wasn't sure how that was supposed to keep him alive, but it's the thought that counts.

"Yeah, okay," said Tony. "I'll take the ride. Thanks, Ducky."


	21. Chapter 21

When Gibbs entered the lab, the scientist flinched and dropped the file he'd been holding.

"Dr. Pandy," said Gibbs.

Dr. Pandy bent over to pick up the scattered papers. He shot an anxious glance at the Sig Sauer in Gibbs' holster.

Tony started laughing. "I see you've met Gibbs before."

"What did he do to you?" Ziva asked.

"He threatened to shoot me," Dr. Pandy confessed. His head was bowed, and his gaze was fixed on the file in his hands.

"What did you do?" Tony asked.

"I cooperated."

Tony laughed again. "No, what did you do to piss him off? Did you spill his coffee? Kill someone?"

"Almost," Dr. Pandy said, solemn.

McGee frowned. "What?"

"I designed a strain of the plague that was stolen and used in biological attack on NCIS. An agent almost died."

Tony's grin only faltered for a second. "Oh," he said, "Well. You're good at your job. Trust me."

Dr. Pandy's brown eyes widened. "You..."

"Tony," said Gibbs. "You get those shipping dates. We'll be down the hall, talking with the lab techs."

"On it, Boss," said Tony. He watched Ziva, McGee and Gibbs leave the room before turning to face to the doctor.

"I'm sorry," said Dr. Pandy. The simple sincerity in his words made Tony look away again.

"Don't worry about it. You were just doing your job. Hannah Lowell is the one who put it in an envelope, and sealed it with a kiss."

"You are more forgiving than your boss. He said that I didn't understand his anger, but if you died, I would."

Tony smiled awkwardly. "Gibbs just doesn't like feeling helpless."

"What do you mean?"

Tony shrugged. "He was stuck between a disease from the Dark Ages, a woman with brain cancer, and a girl with a dead boyfriend. You were pretty much the only person he could wave a gun at. Don't take it personally."

Dr. Pandy looked at Tony for a long moment. When he spoke, his words were slow, and deliberate. "I won't take it personally," he said. "But perhaps you should."


	22. Chapter 22

"You shouldn't have kept it a secret," Gibbs said. His voice was low, but it attracted the attention of the agents walking along the mezzanine. Tony missed the privacy of the Director's office, but Gibbs had stormed out, and Jenny had followed. As if Tony hadn't seen enough explosions for one day.

"It was need to know," said Jenny. "You didn't."

"You used my agent."

"My agent, Jethro." She stressed the possessive.

"Mom," Tony said. "Dad. I can hear you, you know."

"You shouldn't have put him in that position."

"I gave him an out," she said.

"Director." Tony's voice was loud.

Finally, they looked at him. Jenny pressed her lips together. Her lipstick was smudged. All that yelling. "You asked that this be like the Grenouille mission, Tony. Well, the Grenouille mission is compromised, and Gibbs thinks that we shouldn't keep secrets."

"What are you talking about?" Gibbs asked.

"After you returned from Mexico, I offered Tony a position on another team."

"Whose?"

"His own. I offered him his own team. In Rota, Spain."

Gibbs didn't say anything, and Tony wondered if he was remembering another undercover operation that went to hell. Another redhead. Another explosion. The good old days. Or maybe, Gibbs didn't say anything because he was pissed off that Tony was still in D.C.

"I gave him an out," Jenny repeated. "But he didn't take it, because he was worried about you. He said you called Ziva, Kate. If you want to blame someone, blame yourself."

Gibbs was staring at Tony, who was staring at Jenny, who wasn't meeting anyone's eyes. He knew she already regretted her words. She thought she'd killed him, and now the guilt and the frustration were combusting into anger. Tony understood. _C'est la guerre_, as René would say.

"Jenny," he said quietly.

She turned away. "I have work to do."

Gibbs and Tony were left alone, together.

"My memory is fine now, Dinozzo."

Tony laughed. "Trying to get rid of me, Boss? Because there are easier ways. Kort could probably give you a few tips."

"Hey!" Gibbs yelled, and Tony thought it was funny that shouting drew less attention than a quiet voice. It was Gibbs after all. "You think this is a joke, Dinozzo? You could have died!"

Tony shrugged. "That's war." _Merci_, René.

Gibbs leaned against the mezzanine's metal railing. His voice was quiet again, when he spoke. "It doesn't have to be."

"Boss?"

"You shouldn't have kept it a secret."


	23. Chapter 23

A/N: Credit goes to Belker for the idea to include the Atlas case in Tony's medical history. Thank you.

* * *

"The rookie freaks; empties his service revolver into the body," said Tony.

He grinned when he earned scattered laughter from the crew. They were seated around a table in the recreation room of the U.S.S. Seahawk. The smell of coffee was making Tony homesick, and one of the officers was dealing cards from a tattered deck. No stakes because the Agent Afloat was there, but Tony was trying to make up for it. He'd used up half of his best stories, and he'd only been on board for two weeks.

"Is this your idea of a joke?"

Tony turned to see Dr. Nguyen standing in the doorway.

"You didn't hear the beginning," he said.

"I'm talking about your file," Dr. Nguyen wielded a folder like it was a scalpel.

Tony's eyes narrowed. "You read my file?"

"I personally review the file of every member of personnel onboard this vessel in case of a medical issue I need to be aware of, Agent Dinozzo."

"Special Agent," Tony corrected earnestly.

"I don't appreciate your attitude. Did you have your friends at NCIS send me fake medical records?"

"You're assuming I have friends at NCIS," Tony said. He held out his hand. "Can I see the file?"

Dr. Nguyen handed the folder to him. Tony opened it, and scanned the first document. The crew watched in tacit amusement. Tony turned a page.

"Huh," he said. "I forgot about that one."

"Dinozzo," Dr. Nguyen warned.

"It was the plague that did it, wasn't it? This is my medical file. It's accurate. I think. I'm not sure about the concussion in Peoria. I don't remember that."

"You were pushed out of an airplane?" Dr. Nguyen sounded skeptical.

Tony shrugged. "I was wearing a parachute."

"And you were locked up in the sewers by a cocktail waitress?"

Tony nodded solemnly, handing the folder back to Dr. Nguyen. "I escaped using my belt buckle."

"And you had the plague?"

"There was a biological attack on NCIS Washington."

"Come on," said a lieutenant with a pair of deuces. "We would have heard about it if a bunch of federal agents got a medieval disease."

"I was the only one who got sick," said Tony. "It was on the news. That was actually the first time we made the eleven o'clock. The reporters usually say, "federal agents" instead of "NCIS," because no one's ever heard of us. They think we're just CSI for dyslexic people."

The crew laughed again, but Tony winced this time. He'd gone too far. Dr. Nguyen left the room with saying anything. Now the good doctor was going to hold a grudge against Tony for making him look like an idiot. Well, he was on a navy ship. Le it be war.


	24. Chapter 24

Abby was sitting on the edge of Tony's desk when he entered the office. She was kicking the heels of her platform boots against the desk legs, and talking to McGee, Ziva and Lee. When she saw Tony, she shut her mouth.

"Abby Normal," he said. "What are you doing up here? Did you get a match on the fingerprint?"

She stood up, and took a step towards him. Then she stopped. She opened her mouth, closed it again, and started crying.

"Abby?"

She shook her head, and her pigtails grazed her cheeks, before she threw her arms around his neck.

"What's wrong?" Tony turned to look at his agents over Abby's shaking shoulders. "Did something happen?"

"Why don't you tell us, Dinozzo?" Ziva's expression was unreadable.

"What are you talking about?"

"It's your fault Abby's crying," said McGee.

"What did I do?" he asked helplessly.

"You didn't tell me you were leaving," Abby said.

Tony frowned. "Abby, I know you're having abandonment issues right now, but I just went to the head."

"No!" she said. "I overheard the Director say that she was sending you to Germany. You can't move to Germany, Tony! You're our spine. Without you, we're like, phylum cnidaria! We need you!"

"I'm not moving to Germany," Tony said slowly. "The Director is sending me to a security conference in Düsseldorf."

There was a moment of silence while Abby digested his words.

"You aren't leaving us?" she asked.

He smiled. "Sorry, Abby. You're stuck with me."

"Promise?"

"I promise," Tony said quietly.

"Oh," Abby said. She let go, and wiped the traces of her mascara off Tony's neck. "Bring me back a present."


	25. Chapter 25

"Dinozzo?"

Tony didn't look up. He was standing at the edge of scene, feeling sick of explosions, and holding what was left of his NCIS cap in both hands. The fire had eaten away most of the polyester and scorched the metal grommets.

"Tony?"

"I've been breaking that cap in for two years."

"About time you got a new one," said Gibbs. Ziva or McGee wouldn't have heard the confusion in his voice. Kate wouldn't have either. She was a profiler, but she'd never figured Gibbs out.

Tony wasn't sure if she'd figured him out or not. He thought she probably had, since she'd died laughing at him.

"I loved that cap," he said.

If he'd shot it, like he'd shot his old hat, then at least it would still be wearable. He tried to remember what Kate had said when she'd handed it to him. Something like, "Better start breaking it in now." Or else she'd reminded him to bring the lighter fluid. He'd already forgotten.

He saw Gibbs frown. "The one Kate gave you."

Tony dropped the hat on the ground, with the rest of the debris. He turned to walk away.

"Forget it," he said.


	26. Chapter 26

_Bête noire_. Cute, Kate.

Except that Tony hated French, because it reminded him of his mother, who had taught him tenses and conjugations during her Louis XV phase. All those candles and velvet drapes. Tony had felt like he was at a funeral for two years.

A nightmare. Gibbs was close enough, but a _bête noire_ is an anathema. A _bête noire_ is something you hate. Literally, it translates to "dark beast," but as an adjective, "_bête_" means "stupid." Tony also hated French because it was _bête_.

He ran the route from receiving to autopsy, hating himself, being his own anathema. He shouldn't have let Gibbs meet a terrorist without backup.

"_Bête, bête, bête_," he said under his breathe when he saw his boss lying on the floor.

Tony let the other agents call in a situation report. He knelt next to Gibbs and touched his neck, swallowing when he felt a pulse. He looked for an exit wound. Someone handed Tony a bandage left over from Gerald's emergency first aid. Tony folded it, and pressed it against the bullet hole. Gibbs would have been proud. If he was conscious. _Bête_.

"Boss?" Gibbs opened his eyes, but they were fixed vaguely on Tony's right shoulder. Tony frowned. "Boss? Hey, Boss."

Gibbs focused on him.

"Listen, don't try to sit up. Don't," he said as Gibbs sat up, groaning. Tony placed a palm flat against Gibbs' back. He tried not to sigh, because he knew he would have sat up too.

"EMTs will be here in a minute. It's a through and through. Nothing vital."

"I get him?" Gibbs asked.

"Yeah," Tony said. "You got him."

He increased his pressure on Gibbs' shoulder. He was worried about the blood leaching through the folded bandage and onto his fingers. Gibbs' rested his forehead against Tony's shoulder.

"Thanks, Tony," Gibbs said, and Tony blamed the blood loss, because he hadn't done anything except get to autopsy too late to have Gibbs' back. _Bête_.

This time, Tony didn't try not to sigh. What a nightmare. At least the terrorist was dead.


	27. Chapter 27

Tony stood in the middle of the office, in the middle of the night, trying to remember what he was doing there. He couldn't sit still long enough to do paperwork, or review cold cases. He was restless, and angry, and yelling at Gibbs hadn't helped.

Tony hadn't wanted to yell at Gibbs in Autopsy. The bright lights had highlighted his bruises and made the location look like a strategy to trigger sympathy. Tony hadn't wanted sympathy. Tony hadn't known what he wanted.

He hadn't wanted to yell at Gibbs in Autopsy, but he hadn't wanted to wait either. Tony always waited. He worked harder, and smiled wider, and waited for everything to go back to the way it used to be.

"Dinozzo."

Tony flinched.

"What are you doing here?" Gibbs asked. He was standing next to Ziva's desk, with an expression on his face that he usually saved for sociopaths who didn't have anything to lose but the gun in their hand.

"I forgot something," Tony said. "In my desk. My painkillers. For the bruises."

He took an awkward step towards his desk, but stopped suddenly. He'd already thrown away the painkillers.

"Tony?"

"I don't know if I can handle it."

Tony closed his eyes, but when he opened them, he'd still said it out loud. Gibbs was standing in front of him, one hand one inch from Tony's face. Tony wondered what kind of gesture he'd abandoned.

"Sorry, Boss," said Tony, smiling. "McGee was right. I'm just upset about losing the war game. I'm a pretty bad sport for a Phys. Ed. major."

When he tried to smile wider, he felt the scab on his split lip break and bleed. He guessed it probably ruined the effect.

"Tony," Gibbs said. His tone made Tony take a step back.

"Don't even try saying you're sorry. If I have to follow your rules, then you do too."

"I'm sorry," Gibbs said anyway.

Tony didn't say anything.

Gibbs spoke slowly, as if the words took a lot out of him. "I'm not good at this. You know that better than anyone."

Tony nodded to acknowledge the subtext, but it wasn't enough. Not after Mexico, and CPR and the SecNav with his Cuban cigars. Tony still didn't want to yell at Gibbs, but only because he was too tired.

Instead he said, "Not better than ex-wife number three. She's the one that went after you with a baseball bat, right? She was pretty pissed."

"You pretty pissed, Dinozzo?" Gibbs asked.

Tony nodded.

"You want to go after me with a baseball bat?"

Tony shook his head.

"Okay," Gibbs said. He sighed. "I can work with that."


	28. Chapter 28

"Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world..."

"Tony, what happened?" Jeanne asked, as he stood to pull her chair out from the table. She touched his cheekbone with a doctor's deft hand. "How did you get that bruise?"

Tony returned to his seat. "Took a nosedive down my apartment stairs. I think it makes me look dangerous."

"Or clumsy," she laughed. "Did you ice it?"

"You're supposed to put ice on a bruise?" Tony asked. "I didn't know. I don't bruise easily. Yesterday was an unlucky day."

"How so?" she asked, unfolding her napkin and draping it across her lap.

"I didn't see you yesterday," he said to Jeanne. To the waiter, he said, "Two champagne cocktails, please."

"You're right. That is unlucky. What else?"

"I had some trouble with my afternoon class," he said. "We were discussing cinematic action as a structural framework for morality, and one of the students started arguing with me."

"Tim?" Jeanne asked.

Tony laughed repentantly. "I've complained about him before?"

"He should drop the class if he doesn't respect you."

"He's a good student. He'll be a good director, someday," he said. "But he's always undermining my authority. I have so little to begin with."

Jeanne laughed, and her eyes sparkled like she'd been filmed with gauze filters and catch lights.

Tony picked up his cocktail. He twisted the glass between his fingers, agitating the amber liquid. In the background, a Sinatra cover about love and glory played on a tinny sound system.

Jeanne caught him staring. "What?" she asked, blushing.

The line was obvious, but he said it anyway.

"Here's looking at you, kid."


	29. Chapter 29

"Fire away."

Dr. Johnson adjusted her glasses, and stared at Tony through the plastic frames. "This isn't a execution, Special Agent Dinozzo."

"I know. I think I would rather be shot."

"You've had mandatory psychological evaluations before, Special Agent Dinozzo. You've never been enthusiastic, but you've never compared our meetings to archaic capital punishment either."

"Sorry," said Tony. "I've had a bad week."

"Would you like to talk about it?"

"No."

Dr. Johnson sighed. "Do it anyway."

Tony ran his fingers through his hair, making sure that his hands shook. He knew that Dr. Johnson would demand a second session if he smiled too much. He had to give her something. His hands had to shake, or voice had to break, or he had to slip a Freudian phrase into the dialogue.

"We were investigating a murder at Norfolk. I interviewed an officer named Lieutenant Sexton. He wasn't a suspect, so I didn't have backup. He slipped sedatives into my coffee. When I woke up, I was tied to a tree in Anacostia Park."

"How did you sustain the injuries to your hands?"

"He crucified me."

"Pardon me?" Dr. Johnson said. "He crucified you?"

Her glasses were sliding down her nose again. Tony looked at the thick white bandages that shrouded his palms. His hands were still shaking. He didn't understand Christianity. It was the father thing.

"Not for long," said Tony. "Gibbs shot him. I said that it was wrong to persecute someone for their religious beliefs, but he told me to shut up or he would persecute me too."

"Lieutenant Sexton crucified you?" Dr. Johnson repeated.

"He thought I was the Savior," said Tony. "Can you blame him?"


	30. Chapter 30

"Stop hitting him," Vincent Bruno said. The muscle backed off, and Bruno crouched in front the chair that Tony was tied to.

"Do you like movies?" he asked. "Don't answer. I know you do. In movies, criminals always hit cops in the face. I never understood that. Head injuries are not conducive to conversation."

Tony shot a look to his left. Gibbs was sitting still and staring straight ahead.

Bruno turned his head and spoke to the mob of men standing behind him. "Special Agent Gibbs is a Marine. He will not talk if you torture him. Special Agent Dinozzo is not a Marine, but he is stubborn. He will not talk either."

"What am I supposed to do?" A man with a Brooklyn drawl asked on cue, and Tony suppressed a smile. The clichés kept coming.

Bruno stood up. "Torture Special Agent Dinozzo."

"I thought you said he wouldn't talk."

"He won't," said Bruno. "Gibbs will. I told you. He's a Marine."

Tony laughed out loud. "You think Gibbs is going to talk just because you give me a black eye? Hell, he hits me harder than your Long Island lackey does. I know that you guys never go against the family, but we're federal agents. Gibbs is my boss. He pays me to put dirtbags like you behind bars."

"Dinozzo," Gibbs said.

Tony looked to his left. He pressed his lips together. Gibbs wasn't sitting still and he wasn't staring straight ahead. His hands were fighting the mooring rope wrapped around them. Gibbs glared at Bruno and said, "You lay a finger on him, and I'll kill you whether or not you resist arrest."

"Marines are so predictable," said Bruno. "Semper Fidelis, Special Agent Gibbs."


	31. Chapter 31

"You did a damn good job, Dinozzo," said Gibbs. His voice was stern, but he was meeting Tony's eyes for the first time since he'd unbuckled Maddie's seatbelt and pushed her into Tony's arms, so Tony knew he was trying.

"Thanks, Boss."

"The Director says you're eligible for the Meritorious Civilian Service Award this year."

"I still think I should have won it the year I fixed the coffee machine in the break room."

Gibbs didn't suppress his grin, so Tony decided to try telling the truth.

"I don't need an award," said Tony. "I mean, I don't want one. I get it now. When you're doing something scary enough to earn you a medal, you just want to get it over with. You don't want a souvenir. Even if it comes in a fancy glass case."

"You deserve some recognition, Tony."

Tony smiled shyly. "I just got some."


	32. Chapter 32

"What are you watching today?" Kate asked as she entered the hospital room. Tony glanced up from the laptop that was balanced on his knees.

"It's a Wonderful Life," said Tony.

"You're watching a Christmas movie?"

On the screen, George Bailey said, "Well, you look about the kind of angel I'd get. Sort of a fallen angel, aren't you? What happened to your wings?"

"Tony," said Kate. "It's May."

Tony grinned. "It's never too early for Christmas movies."

Kate perched on the edge of the hospital bed, and they watched the small screen in silence for a few minutes. Kate absentmindedly stole the bowl of lime Jell-O from Tony's plastic lunch tray.

"I still can't believe you like that," said Tony. "I thought you were a health food freak."

"It's fat free," she said defensively.

"That's because it isn't really food."

Kate hit him with her spoon and turned back to the computer screen.

"You don't believe in angels do you?" Kate asked.

Tony was reminded suddenly that Kate was Christian. He kept forgetting. He paused to imagine her in a Catholic school girl uniform, before giving her a look he'd learned from Gibbs.

"Kate," Tony said. "You're talking to a man who just survived the plague."


	33. Chapter 33

"Tell me about the under cover operation," said Gordan Spenser. He yawned and stretched. Tony knew the movement had a purpose, but he didn't know if Spenser was pretending to be bored, or if he knew that Tony's back hurt and he was rubbing it in. Tony had been tied to the desk chair in Spenser's office for five hours, and he would kill for a chance to stretch his arms. Unfortunately, Spenser had taken his Sig Sauer.

"Tell me about the operation, Special Agent Dinozzo," he repeated.

"Fine," said Tony. "Okay. I'll tell you."

Spenser yawned again.

Tony said, "I had the operation when I was twelve years old. My appendix was inflamed, and I needed a laparotomy. My doctor said I almost died, because I went into shock. Not emotional shock. Medical shock. There's a difference. Medical shock is less embarrassing."

Tony was expecting the punch, but he bit his lip anyway.

"Are you trying to piss me off?" Spenser didn't sound bored anymore.

"No," said Tony. He sighed, and licked the blood off his lower lip. "It's a natural talent."


	34. Chapter 34

"I am not your responsibility!" Tony shouted.

"Like hell you aren't!" Gibbs was in his face. "I've spent too damn long breaking you in just to lose you because you don't have enough commonsense to call for backup when you need it!"

Tony opened his mouth, and shut it again without saying anything. His took a deep breath. He started to laugh.

"I've only been working here for a month."

"Yeah?" Gibbs said. "Feels longer."


	35. Chapter 35

Tony hated needles. He hated the feeling of metal under his skin. He started picking at the tape that bound the IV needle to his arm.

"Leave it," Gibbs said.

Tony ignored him.

"Hey," Gibbs said. He slapped Tony's hand away. "What the hell is your problem?"

"You left."

"What?" Gibbs sounded annoyed. He leaned back in his chair and glared at Tony.

"You left the hospital, even though the doctors said I might not make it."

"Don't be dramatic, Dinozzo. I had work to do. I'm not the only one. Don't think you're getting out of it just because you landed yourself in the hospital again. You can still do paperwork."

Tony curled his hands into fists and pressed his fingernails into his palms. "What if I died? You would have had to do more paperwork, but at least you wouldn't have to bother visiting me when I land myself in the hospital again!"

"I am not going to do a damn death scene with you, Dinozzo!" Gibbs yelled.

Tony stared at his boss.

"I don't care how many movies you've seen them in!" Gibbs stood up, knocking his chair back. "You're not going to say goodbye. I'm not going to tell you that you'll be fine even though we both know it isn't true. I'm not going to tell you how damn proud I am of you, because you are not going to die on my watch! You hear me Dinozzo?"

Tony kept his eyes trained on the IV needle in his arm. "Yeah boss, I hear you."


	36. Chapter 36

"Can I borrow your stapler, Probie?" Tony asked, already reaching out to take it from McGee's desk.

McGee slapped his hand. "Stop taking my stuff!"

"Probie," Tony's brow furrowed. "What the hell?"

"Stop taking my stuff!" McGee sounded hysterical, and Tony wondered if it was because of the extra work they'd been buried under since Kate died, or if it was because Kate was dead. He knew McGee was still having nightmares. There were shadows under his eyes, and he was drinking almost as much coffee as Gibbs.

"You keep taking my stuff! You took the key from me at the crime scene, and you took that letter from me!"

Tony started laughing.

"It isn't funny!" McGee protested.

"It's kind of funny," Tony said. "You're making me sound so noble, Probie. There was a SWAK on the front. If it was for me, I didn't want you to read it. If it was for you, I wanted to tease you mercilessly."

McGee exhaled and smiled apologetically. He handed Tony the stapler.

"What if it was for Gibbs?" McGee asked.

Tony paled. "I didn't think of that."


	37. Chapter 37

A security guard stopped in front of Tony's desk. The Major Crimes Response Team looked up in unison.

"There's a Miss Watkins here to see you, Agent Dinozzo."

Tony nodded. The security guard departed, leaving a pale girl standing nervously in front of Tony's desk. Her hands were shaking almost as much as they had in the morgue at Monroe University Hospital, but this time Tony could tell that it was caused by nerves instead of withdrawal.

"You probably don't recognize me..."

"Bernadette." Tony stood up. He offered her his chair, and sat on the edge of his desk. "How are you?"

"Better than I was the last time you saw me," she said. "But that's not saying much. I'm in rehab."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"Part of recovery involves apologizing to everyone you've hurt. I'm sorry, Agent Dinozzo."

Tony resisted the urge to tell her that apologies were a sign of weakness. "You weren't the one holding the gun, Bernadette."

"I'm still responsible. I enabled Nick. I visited him in prison yesterday. I said I was sorry. I apologized to Dr. Benoit too. She forgave me. I don't know if I would be alive today if it wasn't for you and Dr. Benoit. If there's any way I can repay you..." she said. "I mean, I know I can't repay you, but if there's any way I can try..."

Apparently Gibbs wasn't the only one who had trouble with apologies. Tony said, "You might not believe this Bernadette, but I get hit in the head a lot. I'm always in and out of hospitals. If you want to repay me, just keep working on that medical degree."

"How did you...?"

"Your class syllabus is sticking out of your bag."

She smiled. "Wish me luck on my midterms."

"Good luck, Bernadette." He didn't add the qualifier. She stood, shouldering her bag, and left the office. Tony watched her until the elevator doors slid closed.

"You forget to tell us something, Dinozzo?" Gibbs asked.

"I really did, Boss."

McGee raised an eyebrow. "You forgot an incident that involved a gun and a pretty girl?"

"She wasn't so pretty then, Probie."

"What happened?" Ziva asked.

"It's a long story." The words were out of his mouth before he realized that he'd said the same thing to La Grenouille in his limousine on the way to a breakfast that was never eaten. This time, Jeanne wasn't there to take over the story, gesturing with her doctor's hands. Part of recovery involves apologizing to everyone you've hurt. Tony suppressed a sigh.

"Then you'd better start talking," said Gibbs.


	38. Chapter 38

"Grab your gear."

"Dead marine?" Tony asked, slinging his backpack over his shoulder as he followed Gibbs to the elevator. Ziva and McGee had left for the night, but Tony had stayed to catch up on paperwork.

"Nope. Dead cow."

Tony stopped walking.

"Four years today, Dinozzo. That calls for a steak dinner."

He hadn't realized what day it was. He usually paid close attention to anniversaries, but he'd had a busy year.

"So it's something to celebrate?" he asked casually as he stepped into the elevator.

Gibbs gave him a look.

Tony nodded. "Right. Why'd you hire me, Boss?"

"I had a gut feeling," said Gibbs.

"A gut feeling?"

"Yeah." He cocked his head to one side. "Might have been indigestion."


	39. Chapter 39

"Very Special Agent Anthony Dinozzo," said Tony. He kept his expression blank because he knew his team was watching him. Ziva kept glancing at him over the top of her computer screen. If she was undercover, she would be dead. It was a good thing Jen hadn't given her the Grenouille assignment, but he was pretty sure Jeanne didn't swing that way, anyway. He hung up the phone and stood up.

"Going somewhere, Dinozzo?" Gibbs asked.

"Head."

Gibbs nodded. He took a sip of coffee, frowned, and threw the empty cup in the trash.

Jen should have given Gibbs the Grenouille assignment. Except he was pretty sure Jeanne wasn't interested in father figures either. Anyway. It didn't matter. Gibbs had been in the _Estados Unidos Mexicanos_, and Tony had been _abandonado_, but Tony didn't blame him. If anyone knew anything about quitting, it was Tony.

Still, all the same, when Gibbs was on the coast of the Caribbean, Tony had slapped himself on the back of the head every time he caught himself practicing his Spanish vocabulary. _Un idioma nunca es suficiente._

Without looking up from the papers on his desk, Gibbs asked, "Why does the Director want to talk to you?"

Tony didn't bother wondering how he knew. "I was passing notes in class again."


	40. Chapter 40

"Dinozzo," said Gibbs, hanging up the phone. "With me."

"Where are we going Boss?"

Tony was already halfway to the elevator, but he stopped when Gibbs said, "Safe house."

"Why?" he asked suspiciously.

"Because that's where you'll be safe."

"You know," said Tony, "Ziva forgave me for stealing her Post-It notes, so I'm pretty sure she isn't going to kill me. Anyway, I think I could take her."

"You want," said Ziva.

"Wish," Tony corrected automatically.

"I have heard it both ways."

"You may not need protection from Ziva, but you'll both need protection from me if you don't shut up," said Gibbs. "Lieutenant Sexton broke out of prison."

"Who is Lieutenant Sexton?" asked McGee.

"A serial killer Tony took down a couple of years ago."

"Not before he'd murdered five women," said Tony.

"Stop beating yourself up, Dinozzo," Gibbs pushed him gently towards the elevator. "There are enough criminals who want to do it for you."


	41. Chapter 41

"Talk to me, Dinozzo."

Gibbs winced when Tony laughed. "Never thought I'd hear you say that, Boss. What should we talk about? The weather was nice today."

"Try again."

"My first partner tried to kill me."

Gibbs shut his mouth.

"I'm not saying it's gone downhill from there, because well," Tony said. "It couldn't, but it hasn't gotten much better either. I don't need some sort of Marine brotherhood. I just want to be able to do my job without getting stabbed in the back. Literally stabbed in the back. I was in the hospital for a week."

Gibbs didn't smile, and Tony had always hated awkward silences, so he kept talking. "For a while I thought your memory was still messed up. I thought you didn't remember me. But you do remember. You just don't care."

Tony looked out the window, even though there was nothing outside but the weather that was nice today.

"Forget it." He laughed. "Well, don't forget it. That's what got us in trouble in the first place, isn't it?"


	42. Chapter 42

"You've got four more days of sick leave, Dinozzo," said Gibbs, as he strode into the office and tossed an empty coffee cup in the trash. Tony sat up straight and tried to look like a man who didn't have two broken ribs.

"Ducky cleared me for desk duty, Boss. How much trouble can I get into sitting at a desk?"

Gibbs stepped into Tony's personal space. "If anyone else asked that question it would be rhetorical, Dinozzo."

"I was going crazy at home."

"You're already crazy if you think I'm going to let you talk me into this."

"I'll do paperwork," he said. "What's the problem?"

"You forgetting something?"

Tony thought desperately. "I brought you coffee. It's on your desk."

Gibbs wrapped his fingers around Tony's wrist and lifted his hand, so that his senior field agent could see the gauze bandages that bound his fingers together.

"Well," said Tony. "It's not like my typing can get any worse."


	43. Chapter 43

"You remember when I stayed with you that time, when it didn't really go so well."

"Yeah, I remember Dinozzo."

"Well listen, I was younger then, immature, a little unfocused."

"It was six months ago Tony."

He talked to Detective Andy Kochifis, who said, "She woke up taking a dirt nap in Rock Creek Park and did a Dracula." But the only thing gothic about this story was Abby. Rising from the dead? Amnesia? A love affair? Tony had never been a big fan of soap operas.

He didn't ask Abby because Abby was a still a little mad at him, and he could hear it in her voice when she said, "Might actually be right." She'd surprised him earlier that week with one of her hugs, and Tony was a cop, and Tony couldn't help it when he pushed her away. He didn't hurt her, except the look in her eyes said he had. He apologized. She mostly forgave him.

She acted like everything was normal around Gibbs. Which Tony knew that she knew that he appreciated, because solving a problem without an authority figure was new for Tony.

But he still wasn't going to ask to sleep in her coffin. Asking Gibbs hadn't gone down well, and asking Ducky had gone down worse. Although Tony suspected Ducky had turned him down so that Gibbs would come around.

Then he was squinting at the flashing lights from the emergency vehicle, like the bomb that had gone off, like the boiler that had blown.

"We've got to do something, Boss."

"Have you ever made a mistake, Tony?" Tony almost laughed, but Kate was getting bandaged up and that really wasn't funny. He knew his Boss was trying to make a point. But Gibbs should know better. Tony's life was a series of mistakes. Peoria, Philadelphia, Baltimore. He wasn't sure whether or not Washington counted. A lot of things he'd done in Washington counted. Like staying at his boss' house six months ago. Sometimes he wished Gibbs had amnesia.

"According to you or me?"

"You."

"Yeah."

"Did anyone make you feel better?"

"No."

And Tony turned to leave, lesson learned, point made, left for dead. If anyone could make Kate feel better, it wasn't him, so he was going to go back to the office and sleep at his desk.

"My door is unlocked."

And Tony was proud of himself when he didn't stop walking. "I know," he said. Tony knew the door was unlocked, but maybe he was the gothic element in the story, because like Dracula, he really needed that invitation.


	44. Chapter 44

They made a big deal about how much coffee he drank, about how he was trying to be Gibbs, and he just wanted to tell them that he was tired, that he was exhausted, that he was the team leader, and he was undercover, and he was two people, and neither one was getting enough sleep, and he fell asleep at his desk, and he woke up fighting, and he felt like he was going to pass out.

But he didn't say that. He smiled and said, "Someone has to keep the coffee shops in business now that Gibbs is gone," because Dinozzos don't pass out.


	45. Chapter 45

When he heard the knock at the door, Gibbs was holding his Sig Sauer to the side of his head. The muzzle was cold against his temple, but Gibbs couldn't bring himself to lower it. Holding a gun to his head on the anniversary of the accident was as much a part of his year as working through his birthday, and listening to Tony complain about Halloween.

Tony knocked again. Gibbs knew it was Tony because his Senior Field Agent was the only person he knew who knocked on a door that hadn't been locked in years, like he was giving his boss a chance to turn him away.

Gibbs set his Sig on the coffee table and yelled, "Go away, Dinozzo."

His front door opened, and the smell of sweet and sour sauce filled his living room, followed closely by his second in command.

"I brought Chinese food," he said, pointlessly.

Tony glanced at the gun on the coffee table, before setting the bag of takeout next to it, and smiling so wide that Gibbs didn't realize it was fake.

"Not now, Dinozzo."

"If we wait, it'll get cold." Tony deliberately misunderstood him. "And I know you hate cold egg rolls, because you told me during the Dupont case. Of course, we hadn't gotten a lead in two weeks and you weren't in a very good mood. If memory serves, you also said you hated computers, people in the service industry, and the sky."

"Dinozzo."

"But we solved the case, and you got over your bad mood Boss."

Tony had been opening the cardboard cartons of fried rice and lo mein, but he stopped, and met his boss' eyes. The understanding made Gibbs breath catch, and he finally realized that Tony's smile had been fake.

So Gibbs didn't turn Tony away, and Tony let him pretend that it was his choice. Gibbs opened a couple of beers, which they nursed until the sun came up, and then he put on a pot of coffee. He teased Tony when he struggled with his chopsticks, and Tony teased him about nothing in particular. They talked about Abby, and Ducky and the look on Dupont's face when they finally caught him, and Gibbs pretended that he didn't know he was being manipulated.

"Thank you," said Gibbs. He wasn't good at apologies, but he could do gratitude.

"Don't thank me, Boss. I expect you to pay me back for the Chinese food. You ate more than your fair share of egg foo young."

Gibbs wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he had been an investigator, and a bastard, for too long. "Have you done this before?"

"Are you coming on to me, Boss?"

"Tony."

"My mother," he said, and Gibbs knew he wouldn't be able to pick up a gun for years without seeing the look on Tony's face. "Until it stopped working."

Gibbs nodded, and started stacking the empty takeout boxes. "I won't make you do it again."


	46. Chapter 46

Gibbs didn't sleep the night after they put Kate in the ground, so he was there the minute Tony started screaming.

Tony tried to get some sleep, meaning that he tried not to, but the combination of exhaustion, jet lag, and plague knocked him on his ass minutes after Gibbs dumped him on the sofa.

Then Gibbs went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, because he knew that if he stumbled down the steps to his basement and started sanding, he would fall asleep, and he didn't want to fall asleep for the same reason that Tony didn't want to fall asleep. He also knew that if he stayed in the living room, he wouldn't be able to hold it together, because he had always hated watching Tony sleep. Without his fake smile and his sparkling eyes, Tony looked so damn ingenuous that Gibbs couldn't help but feel guilty for sending Tony out into the world to take pictures of dead bodies, and talk to their killers and get drugged and kidnapped and shot and stabbed workday after workday, especially after a workday like today.

Gibbs was waiting for the nightmares to start, so he wasn't surprised when he heard Tony scream, but he was sorry. He sat down on the couch, next to Tony, who was too small to take up too much room since he'd been sharing his body with _Yersinia pestis._

Tony's choked cry was cut short, but Gibbs didn't know if it was because Tony had woken up enough to realize that he was screaming, or because his lungs were still too damaged to sustain that kind of sound.

Gibbs gripped Tony's shoulders when he sat up. Tony was trembling so hard that for a minute, Gibbs wondered if his cocky, ex-cop, senior field agent was finally crying, but then he realized that Tony wouldn't be shaking like that if he would actually allow himself to cry.

So Gibbs enveloped Tony into the strongest, fiercest hug he could manage at three in the morning, and held on until Tony stopped shuddering under his hands. Then he let his sleeping agent sink back into the pile of throw pillows, and this time he watched Tony as his breathing slowed, even though it hurt almost as much as watching Kate as her breathing stopped.


	47. Chapter 47

Gibbs glanced at his newly minted Senior Field Agent, and frowned. The cut on Tony's head concerned him, but not as much as his mein. Tony was sitting on the edge of the plastic waiting room chair, and staring silently at the aquarium full of garish fish. He hadn't opened his mouth since they arrived at the hospital.

"What's eating you?" Gibbs asked bluntly.

"I don't like doctors," said Tony. He looked surprised, and Gibbs wondered if he hadn't meant for that truth to slip out. Gibbs was curious. He knew it was morally dubious to use a concussion to his advantage, but he had been a bastard for a hell of a lot longer than he'd known Anthony D. Dinozzo.

"Why not?" he asked.

Tony shut his mouth and turned back to face the fish.

"You like Ducky," Gibbs pointed out.

"Ducky isn't a normal doctor," said Tony.

"Because he's an ME?"

"Because he's Ducky."

"But you don't like doctors," said Gibbs. He had spent the day wishing Dinozzo would shut up, but now that he wanted to talk, it was like pulling teeth.

"No," Tony said stubbornly.

"Any particular reason?"

Tony shot Gibbs a look so world-weary, that he was suddenly afraid of his agent's answer, but all Tony said was, "I don't know, Boss. Any particular reason you don't like lawyers?"

Gibbs opened his mouth to say something about Rule Thirteen, but Tony cut him off.

"Stop interrogating me."

"I'm not," Gibbs lied. He sighed. "I am."

Tony glanced at Gibbs, his expression inscrutable. Suddenly, and inexplicably, he started to talk. "Once upon a time in Peoria, I went undercover. My first cover, as a cop, was Anthony Mortadella. I'd had Mortadella pizza the night before."

Gibbs noticed that Tony used the qualifier, "As a cop," to describe his first under cover operation, but he decided not to comment. He was afraid that if he interrupted Tony now, he would never hear about what happened in Peoria. He remembered seeing paperwork about an undercover op when he was scanning Tony's files from Peoria, and thinking that he had been pretty damn green for an assignment like that, but he'd never read the reports. They'd been busy. With Blackadder gone, they'd been shorthanded. He suspected that was the same reason a rookie had been sent undercover.

"Anthony Mortadella was just like me, except that he was crazy. We had evidence that the guards at the Bartonville State Hospital were targeting the children of patients. We didn't know how many members of the staff were involved, so when I went undercover, we didn't tell anyone but the Director of the hospital about the investigation. He told us that he would do everything he could to help us, but as soon as the doors closed on my partner, he sedated me and strapped me to a bed."

"He was in on it," said Gibbs.

Tony nodded, but stopped suddenly, and Gibbs wondered just how much his head was hurting him. "He called in a couple of favors, and had my medical records altered. Then he called my partner and told him that I had been hospitalized for schizophrenia when I was a child, but my father had his lawyers cover it up. He said that being readmitted to a mental institution had triggered a relapse."

"Your partner didn't believe him, did he?" Gibbs asked. He hadn't meant to interrupt, but he couldn't reconcile the direction this story was heading with what he knew about partnerships.

Tony rolled his neck, trying to work out a kink. "It was pretty convincing when the Director pumped me full of Haloperidol and invited him to watch me foam at the mouth."

"Haloperidol?"

"It's an antipsychotic, but if it's administered to someone with a healthy brain, it gives them the symptoms of psychosis. I was pretty out of it. Paranoia, hallucinations. I thought my partner was there, or my father. Which is funny, because he never visits me when I'm in the hospital."

Gibbs didn't see the joke. "How long were you there?"

"I was flying high for about a week before I made like Sarah Connor in _Terminator 2: Judgment Day_ and escaped using a paperclip from my medical file that I palmed when the nurse was making her rounds. That was the best _Terminator_, by the way. The first one was too camp and they weren't even trying when they made the third one. I updated my partner and we arrested everyone involved in the child prostitution ring. I was made detective, more as an apology than because I actually deserved it, but I moved to Philadelphia anyway." Tony smiled. "The end."

There was a pause, and Gibbs knew that Tony was waiting for his reaction. He opened his mouth, wishing that he'd kept it shut to begin with. The glances Tony had sent him throughout his monologue hadn't escaped him. Tony was afraid that in this stilted and censored story of abuse, his bastard of a boss would find something to blame him for.

"You know that wouldn't stand here. The way you were treated. That wouldn't stand at NCIS."

"Well, yeah, Boss. It's not like I think Director Morrow is going to strap me to a bed. His secretary on the other hand…"

"I would never believe them if they told me you were crazy."

Tony shot him an incredulous look. "Boss, you call me crazy all the time."

"Yeah," said Gibbs. "But I'm the only one who gets to."

That made Tony laugh. He was still laughing when the nurse came to escort them to a room. As they walked past the fish tank, and down the hall, the sound of their footsteps echoing off the linoleum floor, Gibbs patted Tony on the shoulder.

"Next time you get hurt, maybe Ducky can patch you up."


	48. Chapter 48

Gibbs had expected anger, but Tony still managed to surprise him. Tony always managed to surprise him. Dinozzo backed him up against the back of the elevator, striking his palm against the metal wall.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he hissed. "I have been _months_ undercover! After everything I've put into this op, I am not going to walk away!"

"I know" Gibbs said evenly, even though he wasn't sure his senior field agent wasn't going to hit him. "That's what I'm afraid of."

"What?

Gibbs heard the exhaustion in that single word, and he knew he'd made the right choice. It had been hard to remember in the Director's office, caught between Fornell's self-satisfaction and Tony's disbelief.

"That you aren't going to walk away from this op."

Tony's eyes narrowed warily. "I can take care of myself."

After all these years, it still surprised him when Tony lied to his face.

Gibbs could remember the day, a month after he'd hired Dinozzo, when he'd walked into Autopsy, and caught Gerald and Balboa making bets about how long it would be before Tony ended up in the hospital again. Like it was funny that he kept getting into trouble. Like it was funny that he was so reckless.

Gibbs had yelled himself hoarse even though he'd known it wasn't their fault. Not totally. Not when Tony had limped into the office that morning, dropped his crutches behind his desk and said, "I figure, if this many people are trying to kill me, I must be doing something right."

Gibbs told himself Tony didn't have a death wish, that he wasn't the type, but Tony always managed to surprise him.

"No, Dinozzo," he said, unhappily. "You can't. You can take care of victims and witness, Ziva, McGee, Abby and Ducky. Hell, you can take care of me. But you can't take care of yourself. You never could take care of yourself."

He saw Tony's fingers flex. He still wasn't sure his senior field agent wasn't going to hit him, but he kept going anyway.

"So let me."


	49. Chapter 49

"Listen," said Dr. Johnson. "I know that the field agents perceive me as an enemy, and I know that you feel like you can't be completely honest with me. You lie to me, and I let you, because I understand the horror of your job. You have to be a little bit crazy to work here. Just this once though, I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to tell the truth. Can you do that?"

She'd practiced the speech in front of a mirror. Dr. Johnson had been the primary psychiatrist for the Major Crimes Response Team for five years, and she felt like she'd never gotten an honest word out of any of them, except for McGee. He always complained about his sister, or talked about his books. She wasn't sure if he was really that normal, or if he was the best liar out of all of them. She was starting to feel paranoid.

"Okay," said Tony.

Dr. Johnson blinked. She hadn't expected it to be that easy. She didn't even know what question she was going to ask. She felt like she was back in Mrs. Kenyan's sixth grade English class and there was a pop quiz.

She glanced at her papers, and chose a question at random from the section on social relations.

"Have you ever been in a love-hate relationship?"

"Yes."

"Okay," she said. "What do you think the problem was?"

"Trust issues," Tony said promptly.

"Yours or hers?"

This time he seemed to consider the question carefully. "Both."

"So you were both to blame?"

"I don't know. It was probably my fault."

She leaned forward in her chair. She thought she'd sensed self-esteem issues, but she'd never been able to pin them down during their interviews. "Why do you think that?"

He shrugged. "Probably because I shot her."

"You _shot_ her? With a gun."

"She tried to shoot me too," he said defensively. "But I was a better shot. Not that you'd ever hear her admit it."

Dr. Johnson looked at her notes, like the appropriate response would be penciled neatly under the date, but she still hadn't written anything down. There didn't seem to be any point, since Dinozzo kept telling lies.

"Anyway," he added as an afterthought. "She didn't die."

"You shot her."

Tony didn't seem to hear her. "She was a better dancer, a better cook. But she wouldn't admit that I was a better shot. I couldn't have that one little thing."

"You tried to kill each other?" She really thought she would be used to Dinozzo by now.

"You did say love-_hate_, right?"

She finally noticed the smile that he'd been trying to hide.

"You're lying!"

"Maybe you should be psychologist when you grow up."

"Dinozzo," she said, exasperated. "I asked you for one honest answer."

"And I gave you one honest answer. Rule number forty-two: To get the right answers you have to ask the right questions. Are we done?"

He had already stood to leave, and Dr. Johnson looked up at him as he collected his coat. He'd stopped trying to hide the smile, and she couldn't help smiling back. She would clear him for duty, again, and next time she interviewed him, he would play her, again. She wouldn't try using the speech on the rest of the team.

"Why do I feel like I'm the one being evaluated?" she asked.


	50. Chapter 50

"You do realize that his pulse is displayed on the monitor, don't you?" asked Director Morrow, but it wasn't really a question.

Gibbs glanced at one of the machines that was connected to his senior field agent, but he didn't move his hand from the bed, where his thumb rested against the anterior of Tony's right wrist.

"Never been good with machines."

"How's he doing?"

"Still alive."

Morrow nodded like that was really an answer, and moved to stand behind Gibbs' chair. Several minutes passed in silence, save for a steady drone from the machines that Gibbs wasn't good with.

"I understand you pulled a gun on a cooperative witness today," said Morrow.

"He made the plague that got Dinozzo sick."

"But he didn't put it in an envelope and mail it, Jethro. He was a scientist. And he told you what you wanted to know."

"No," said Gibbs. "He didn't."

Tony shifted in his sleep. Morrow clapped a hand on Gibbs' shoulder, and turned to leave.

"Dinozzo will pull through. Sometimes, I think he's even more stubborn than you are."

Gibbs grunted.

"Which is why you'd better not let him catch you holding his hand when he wakes up. He'll never let you hear the end of it."


	51. Chapter 51

"Boss, I got the records you wanted," said Tony, striding into the bullpen and tossing a folder onto Gibbs' desk. "But the Chief says you owe him a beer. What's up with that? I thought you hated metro cops."

"I hired you didn't I?"

Gibbs was impressed, despite himself. Tony hadn't missed a beat even though halfway through the word "wanted" he'd caught sight of the plasma screen, where ZNN was showing footage of some Wall Street function.

It had taken Gibbs longer than he'd like to admit to recognize Tony's father. The reporter hadn't said his name until three minutes into the broadcast, like it was expected that anyone watching a news story about Wall Street at eight in the morning would recognize Anthony Dinozzo Senior. That exlained a lot about Tony.

But it didn't explain everything, so bastard that he was, Gibbs said, "I didn't know your Dad was loaded. Or that your last name is really pronounced Di-nozz-o."

Tony shot him a look. They both knew that Gibbs had Abby run a background check on him ten minutes after they'd met in the stuffy Hippodrome Theater in Baltimore, Maryland. Also, only reporters, La Cosa Nostra and FBI agents pronounced his name like that.

"Yeah, well. I don't like correcting people."

Gibbs jabbed a finger in the air, and cocked his head to one side. "You know, for a cop, that's probably not a good trait."


	52. Chapter 52

Disclaimer: I was watching Prison Break, and I thought, "Fox River is in Illinois. And so was Tony's first department." So this time I own neither the plot, nor the characters. However, I do enthusiastically claim ownership for the nickname McStickler. If you thought of it first, don't tell me because it would make me sad.

A/N: This takes place sometime around Season Six, because I hadn't seen anything since then.

* * *

"It's clearly our jurisdiction," said Fornell as he and the Major Crimes Response Team slammed their respective car doors with their respective degrees of anger. Tony probably would have just let his door click shut, because despite the fact that he was the one bleeding he wasn't really all that angry, but Gibbs grabbed his coat sleeve, yanking Tony out of the car and taking most of his weight in one movement. Then he kicked the car door shut. Hard.

"Gibbs?" asked Vance. Tony hadn't even noticed Vance enter the parking garage. That probably didn't say a lot for his detecting skills, but he decided he'd done his share for the day.

"What?" said Gibbs. Said, not asked. He always managed to make it sound more like a dare than a question.

"What do you think about the interrogation?"

"I think I'm taking Dinozzo to autopsy, so if you want to have this conversation you'd better stop blocking the elevator."

"I'm fine, Boss. It's just my leg."

"Shut up, Dinozzo."

It was a tight fit in the elevator and Tony stifled a chuckle when McGee got a little more familiar with Fornell than he'd meant to.

"Maybe you should just call Ducky and have him come down here," said Vance as Ziva squeezed in. "He's bleeding all over the elevator floor."

"Oh, sorry. I could take the stairs."

"Shut up, Dinozzo," said Gibbs.

"It's okay. It'll give me an excuse to have the linoleum replaced," said Vance.

"I should get to interrogate him," said Fornell.

Gibbs shifted Tony's weight a bit. "Dinozzo's the one who tackled him. If anyone should get to interrogate Petty Officer Bartelmayo, it's him."

"No," said Vance. "I actually like the linoleum in interrogation."

"I think I have a towel in my gym bag, I could just-"

"Shut up, Dinozzo."

They shuffled into autopsy. Abby, Ducky and Palmer had been playing poker for Q-tips, but when they saw Tony, Ducky clucked his tongue and patted the autopsy table. Tony pulled himself up onto it. He thought about protesting when Gibbs started to untie his shoe, but he was up to three shut ups in about as many minutes and he didn't want to poke the bear.

He decided to pretend he hadn't noticed that his employer was treating him like a two year old. He tuned back into the conversation as Fornell was saying, "It's the Director's golf day. It'll be an hour before we get an answer."

Ziva shrugged. "That is fine. Gibbs likes to make suspects wait."

"So does Fornell," Tony said helpfully. Everyone turned to look at him. Even Ducky, which made Tony nervous because he didn't stop stitching. "What? I would know."

"When are you going to get over that, Dinozzo?" asked Fornell.

"When you apologize for having accused me of cutting off a girl's leg and then biting it, Tobias."

"Actually, I think he accused you of cutting off her leg after you bit it."

"Not helping McStickler."

"Testy."

"You'd be testy too if you were getting stitched up like one of Abby's voodoo dolls."

"Actually my needlework isn't as good as Ducky's. His stitches are much daintier."

"Nice to know my war wound looks dainty."

"Don't be dramatic. It's not a war wound," said Gibbs.

"There, I think that should do it, my boy. I'll just…"

"What?" Tony asked. Then he saw where Ducky was looking. The little white lines that went all the way around the last two toes on his left foot. The pinky finger toe and the ring finger toe. Tony wondered why there weren't names for toes like there were for fingers. Or maybe there were and he just didn't know them. He was only a phys ed major.

He tucked his feet underneath his body even though he nearly popped his new dainty stitches in the process.

"That's nothing. That's from a long time ago."

"Let me see your foot, Anthony," Ducky said, almost coldly.

"Do what Ducky says."

"It's from a long time ago. Can't we do this later?"

Ducky frowned. "No, we cannot discuss this later. There is evidence of medical history not in your records and I insist on an explanation now, young man."

"It's not like it's some sort of contagious disease or allergy to penicillin, Duck. It's just an injury that healed up in-"

"This is not just an injury! These toes were amputated!"

"Amputated? Like? Cut? Off?" Abby asked, and every word was a question.

Tony rolled his eyes. "They weren't amputated. And the bossman calls me dramatic. I stepped on a pair of garden shears."

That was what the boss had written in the official report. Not the boss like Gibbs, but the boss like the prison guard.

When he first joined NCIS, it had taken Tony longer than any other probie, before or after, to start calling his boss boss. Gibbs always said it was because he was stubborn, and he said it with that half of a half of a smile on his face so Tony didn't correct him, but the truth was every time he heard the word he smelled creamed corn and then he got this phantom pain in his left foot that was new and old at the same time, like a used car or a song sung by any teenage girl who had ever worked for Disney.

In his report, the boss said that Tony had stepped on a pair of garden shears and they went clean through his boot. His boot had been intact and three whole feet away from his one partial foot when they found him and then the rest of him, and there certainly hadn't been anything clean about it, but the boss didn't care about that because Tony was just a con. Worse. A con without connections. A fish.

"You don't have a garden," said Gibbs.

"There's a reason for that."

The truth was that they'd been trying to get information on a killer who was taking orders from a con in gen pop. One of those codependent master-padawan relationships that seemed so popular with both serial killers and Tony. He'd been undercover for so long that he started using his cover ID when he talked to himself in the SHU. He was getting deeper in the Fox River than he'd ever meant to, and his backup wasn't really living up to its name.

But they'd sewed his toes back on, although right now he wished their stitches had been daintier. They'd healed by the time the op was over and he hadn't felt the need to mention it to his not-backup. He figured there were worse things he could have lost than toes, but he wasn't really comfortable talking about that in front of the Director. Or Fornell. Or Ziva, or McGee, or Ducky, or Palmer, or Abby, or Gibbs.

"Like I said. It happened years ago. I'm fine."

He wished he could say something other than that, because he knew at least half of them were thinking: child abuse. But in some ways that was better. At least that was damage they already suspected.

Gibbs stared at him for a long moment before he said. "Great. Then if you're so fine, get upstairs and check on our suspect."

Tony put his shoe back on and left autopsy, but he was moving slow because of his leg and the used-Toyota-Hannah-Montana-pain in his left foot. The elevator was moving even slower than him, so he was still in the hallway, just a glass door away from Abby when she said, "He was lying, wasn't he?"

"Yes." That was the boss.

"Why would he lie?"

"Because he's Dinozzo," Gibbs said. Then he seemed to reconsider. "Some of the time."


	53. Chapter 53

A/N: This is a tag to the Season Two episode Hometown Hero. If you don't remember that episode, all you need to know is that Tony's car was destroyed.

* * *

"...And she said she wanted to see the new Star Wars movie when it came out. I know that sounds like McSkywalker's idea of a good first date, but I had been planning on seeing it anyway, so I said..."

Tony's hands flailed dramatically and somewhat drunkenly as he told a story that Gibbs was only sort of following. They were sitting on the floor of Gibbs' basement, drinking bourbon out of jars and occasionally making a halfhearted swiped at the boat with sandpaper. They'd actually gotten some good work done on it earlier that evening, but that had been half a bottle ago and even Gibbs was starting to feel the effect. Which meant Tony definitely was.

About time.

"...this Hayden Christensen look-alike without his shirt on and that's when I knew I had to bail."

"You drunk, Dinozzo?" Gibbs asked, once he was reasonably sure the story was over.

Tony seemed to consider this. "You know, I think I am."

"Good. Spill."

Tony looked uncertainly at the jar in his hand. "The bourbon?"

"You spill my bourbon, I'll make you drink it off the floor. I meant whatever's got you so worked up over that damn car."

Tony shrugged. Smiled. Gibbs didn't buy it for a minute. He knew how Tony's mind worked. Most of the time, anyway. Dinozzo had spent all day whining about his 'Vette so that everyone would be so sick of hearing about it they wouldn't ask him any questions.

"You know how I am about cars boss. And my baby was a total chick magnet."

"Well, she was insured, wasn't she? So buy a new one." Gibbs was a practical man.

"Yeah." Tony smiled some more.

It was looking like practicality wasn't going to cut it.

"Tony. Just tell me. She a gift from your Dad or something?" He hazarded. It was unlikely, but family was pretty much the only thing that ever made Dinozzo's eyes look like that.

Tony snorted. "My dad wouldn't give me half a minute, let alone a car. 'Sides, he's more of a Lincoln town car than a '90 ZR-1 Corvette kind of guy."

"Can't say I think much of his taste," Gibbs said quietly. Tony missed the subtext, but he really was pretty drunk. "So then who gave it to you?"

"What makes you so sure someone gave it to me?"

"It's the only _thing_ I've ever seen you care about," said Gibbs.

"Come on, Boss. I love things. All my shiny new suits-"

"-are new because you tore up the old ones tackling suspects."

"My TV-"

"-is a piece of crap. You may love movies, but the TV itself is junk. Even I know that. And I've seen your apartment, so don't try to tell me you own anything else besides a La-Z Boy and some frozen pizzas. But you washed that car every other week and you wouldn't let anyone else drive it. Not even me."

Tony's eyes went wide. "Especially not you. I've seen the way you drive."

"You ever seen me crash?" Gibbs asked mildly.

"Well, no. Okay. I guess if I was going to let anyone drive my baby, it would have been you. Better you than Abby. She drives every car like it's a hearse."

"Slow and mournful?"

"Like everyone's giving her a really wide berth."

Gibbs had to laugh a little at that. But he wasn't going to let Dinozzo distract him, even if he was starting to get kind of tired. He was too old to drink this much. Not that he'd ever admit it.

"Who then?"

Tony shrugged and smiled some more, but then he started talking. "My old partner from Philly kind of willed it to me when he retired. He taught me pretty much everything I knew before I met you."

Tony could spend an eight hour workday talking about a three hour date, but whenever there was anything important on his mind it was a sentence. Two tops. But that was all Gibbs needed. So it wasn't about his dad, but it was about family. Kinda'.

"Yeah, well he should have taught you that ponies are better than sports cars. I know a place run by an old corpsman who'll give you a good deal on a Mustang if I ask nicely."

"You want to go shopping with me?" Tony asked doubtfully.

"Not if you're gonna' call it that. But I'll help you find a new car."

"Mustangs, huh?" Tony said thoughtfully.


End file.
